Whirlibird Studios is one of the most tightly run studios in the industry, shooting for Columbia Sportswear, Mountain Hardwear, Prana and Sorel.
Walk through it, department by department, with the real team running the operations.
You are above Whirlibird Studios in Portland, Oregon. 12 rooms on one floor, shooting for Columbia, Mountain Hardwear, Prana and Sorel. Scroll to walk it room by room, with the people who run it.
Portland, Oregon.
Twelve rooms · one continuous camera move · films in every room
Meet Rob and Jarod. Every shoot at Whirlibird starts here. About 100 contractors on the roster, sets booked weeks out, models matched to product by size, fit and availability. All before a camera turns on.
Jarod RitchieAssociate Producer
Jason sets the data flowing. Every product record, every model spec, every piece of metadata sits in the right place before anyone needs it. Shooting, reporting, handoffs, all running on the same clean data.
Jason WheelerProgram Manager
On the loading dock, products arrive from manufacturing every day. Andy's team hangs them and scans them. 266 locations in this room, each one a cell in the system. One UPC scan tells him what is here, what is shot, and what is not. Nothing gets missed.
Andy Van KempenOperations Manager
Nathan's job is knowing where everything is. 30,000 samples live in the building, and every rack carries a container ID that moves with one scan. Storage, style closet, set, merch room. One scan, one answer.
Nathan KornelisOperations Associate
Michelle builds the outfits. 4,000 to 5,000 looks a season for Columbia's PDP and editorial shoots, each checked so every pairing piece is actually available to buy. The outfit sheet she prints is what the on-set stylist works from.
Michelle ReynoldsSr. Stylist
Hero piece, pants, socks and shoes are staged before the model walks in. Gwen matches every piece to the outfit sheet built down the hall. What was planned is what gets shot.
Gwen StubbsStylist
The outfit sheet gets scanned into Kelvin, the Creative Force capture app. Every product in the look appears with its shot list: front, side, back, portrait, head to toe. The photographer stays focused on shooting, and the wrong piece never reaches the frame.
Emmanuel CruzPhotographer
Every select from the photographer shows up in one review queue, alternates included. The art director reads them as a set, catches the small stuff like a distracting tattoo or a crop that isn't quite right, and sends the images on with the notes attached.
Jessica MastersSr. Art Director
Allison's team starts each morning with review notes already waiting on each image. Circles and instructions arrive on the file itself, external retouchers get the same brief, and one shared board tracks what is to do, doing and done.
Allison StraughanPost Production Manager
Cole edits every video the studio ships. Material numbers, file management, server backups and progress tracking all happen inside the edit, so the team handles a volume it could not touch before.
Cole TaylorVideo Editor
The digitech role has been absorbed into the system, so photographers shoot, select and capture on their own. Darryl QCs the video coming off set with the stills in view beside it, and the work flows straight to an art director.
Darryl PattersonManager of Photography
Paul catalogues every piece of gear in the equipment room. Check-in and check-out are one scan each, and nobody keeps a spreadsheet or a manual log to know where a camera is.
Paul DeVillePhoto Studio Specialist
Creative Force touches every corner of this studio. About 30,000 samples a season, and every team you just met works from the same record. Jean-Francois says there's no going back. Once a studio has this kind of visibility, no one wants to give it up.
Jean-Francois OrtizDirector, Photo Studios
